Growing up in Christ

Month: October 2014

I never understood exactly what this sense of destiny and the drive behind it was for, but by the end of my school years, I knew it had something to do with God. I felt it more in my gut than in my head. It was on my first ship the USS New Orleans where I began to come up into the plan that God had laid out for me – before I had ever been born. There were two different vessels aboard this ship that at some level, of their own free will had made themselves available for God’s use. They would soon be pouring into me as others had poured into them. Andy was one of those guys who was a lover, where others would be fighters. He was so full of love. I was a fighter. Andy was from Lake Charles, Louisiana, and wasn’t but a…

If you spend your life seeking answers instead of God you will never find them. Not the real ones. If instead you seek God you will find Him, and all the answers along with Him. If you do not personally know Him, then you never personally sought Him. You might have ridden along as someone else searched for awhile, or looked for Him in the wrong place. But then He tells us where to look. Perhaps you were even religious at some point. God is not, nor does He want you to be. We will never get God to think the way men do. He cannot be trained in critical exegetical scholarship, nor will He join your think tank or even someone’s argument. The very capacity for knowledge that you have is a single drop from His ocean, of which He has many. He cannot be taught new things or make room for the ideas of others. He knows everything. Man cannot modernize Him or His Word as many churches and writers of today have done. He is the LORD and He changes not. And He says so in His book that he wrote through anointed men for all other men to read.

When Jesus shows up it is not to take sides, it is to take over. If you know Him this will be very cool. If you don’t know Him, you will not like it. This current attempt at modernization is simply a departure from Him, nothing more. “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.” I didn’t say that, Jesus did. God is so serious about His Word that He even puts it above His Name, and that’s pretty high up there. His Word is never taken seriously by people who do not take Him seriously. He will not be packaged or boxed or kept in His place. The earth and everything on it and in it belong to Him. He does not need your belief in order to exist, He exists whether you believe in Him or not. He needs your belief to get you to Heaven. The tricky thing about making creatures identical to yourself is that they can say no. Or even tell you to go to Hell. If that is where you find yourself and you want to stay there, then you should not waste your time reading this book.

If that’s where you are and you want to change – then keep reading brother. If you don’t know where in the Hell you’re at and don’t know what to think about any of it, the you should keep reading too. Because everybody is going to Hell. Everyone on the planet is going to Hell. Everyone. No if ands or buts. It doesn’t matter what we think, how we feel or what we want. You are going to Hell. It is not an option, and it’s not open for discussion. It is automatic. You don’t have to do anything bad, you’re going anyway. Even if you were really really good, you are still going. If you were born as a human being on this planet, going to Hell is a certainty. That is all you had to do and it came with the territory. But there is an explanation and there is a single option. Something available as a choice to going to Hell. Something other than the certainty. If you want it, then you must do something else to get it. Here’s the explanation . . . you’re going to Hell. Oh sorry, I already said that.

When we were born, it was without any say at all in the color of our skin, our gender, who your parents were, or even how you looked. All of that was decided before you and I got here. So are the rules of the game, long before we arrived. God has given all men free will so each can choose how they will operate within the parameters, but the parameters are set. You will stand before God as either your Father or your Judge, but you will stand before Him. It is inevitable and it is one of the parameters. This particular episode began with a man made in God’s image, a woman made from a part of the man, thus giving us two parts of the same whole. As only a part of your mom and dad went into making you, you cannot be shocked at this. They lived in a beautiful place without a single need , where nothing could hurt them and Death did not exist. God loved them and they loved Him, and they got to spend time together every day. Man was given the authority and made head over the whole earth, including the sun moon and stars – in the same way that God was head over man and the whole universe.

Then came Lucifer, to try to get back illegally what was once his, before Adam. He had been ruler of the whole earth from Eden in the previous episode called the pre-Adamite world. Which had kings and cities, and it was these whom he led in worship of God and had been anointed a guardian angel over. Until he started talking smack to all of them about God since he had already decided in his heart that he was going to take over. Talking smack about people will always give you trouble, even today. Especially those in authority over you. So he launched an invasion against God and ascended to Heaven from the earth with a third of all the angels. Where he was met by Michael the archangel of God, along with the other angels who still loved God and didn’t want His job.

Michael immediately kicked Lucifer’s butt and tossed him back to earth just like lightening! Jesus said He saw it happen, He was there. That’s probably where the devil sized underwater crater in the Gulf of Mexico came from. He had been talking out of his rear about God for so long that by the time he bumped into Michael, it caught on fire. It’s a good thing he hit water first, he needed something to put it out. See, God was still being cool to him even after he was fired. Alright alright, I had to throw that last one in. This rebellion of Lucifer’s caused the destruction of the earth of that time along with it’s inhabitants, and the falling away of one third of all the angels. It was literally thrown into chaos, existing in a state where the laws of physics no longer applied, even light. Much like the singularity in a black hole, even the light is gone.

It was from this chaos in Genesis 1:2 (tohu va bohu in Hebrew) that God re-created the earth, starting with turning the lights back on by verse 3. Creating Adam and Eve by verse 27, with the Devil re-gaining control of the earth by duping Adam and Eve to rebel against God (just as he did) by verse 6 of chapter 3. If God had decided right here to destroy Lucifer because of how badly he messed up, all of the other angels wouldn’t have loved God, they would have feared Him. They would have thought look what God did to Lucifer,if we don’t get our act together – He’ll do the same thing to us. So what God did instead of destroying, was to create Heaven and earth, Adam and Eve and you and me, and everybody you know to prove one thing in the end . . . . that Love will overcome evil. It is as though He was saying – you saw me everyday Lucifer, you knew me and my goodness and still went against me. I will create a race of people who won’t even see me and of their own free will they will choose to re-enact the plan of salvation and choose Love over evil .

It was never intended to make sense and appeal to our reason and logic. It is supposed to require belief, which is always an act of the will. Since it had been through departure from believing God and thus obeying Him, we were taken out of a world where Life was the constant and into a world where Death is the constant. No matter how much life was produced. As it still is today. Since the devil loves to kill, you can see how this is somewhat of a heaven for him, he thinks. When really it will all boomerang back on him as God causes the devil and his own devices to bring back to Himself what was stolen from Him in the first place. Namely you and me, and anybody else that wants to come Home. It is the place we were always meant for, which is why I often feel so terribly out of place here.

God is smarter than the devil, and much more powerful. So the devil is really not His problem, he’s our problem. As it was our ancestors who put him in charge. We are God’s problem, which has already been solved. In fact He has the only solution. A lot of people don’t want to hear that, so they try to find other routes. These other religions don’t offer some viable alternative to Jesus Christ, but they are united in one thing: They are against the sovereignty of Jesus, they do not want Him to be their King. And they will not let Him be their God, they will not. They would rather serve a god that they or the devil made up, so they can do whatever they want. Without accountability and without consequence. Which of course makes their god a puppet god who does things the way they want them done. Putting them in charge so that they themselves are god. The Bible has a word for that, it is Idolatry; creating false gods. False gods that demand your obedience .

Islam is the Arabic term for submission. Allah is a god that demands his followers die for him. Gee I wonder who made that up. Must not be too powerful if he needs you to die for him. I find it hilarious. And don’t just kill yourself, no – take a bunch of people who don’t want to go with you! Whereas Jesus, a Greek word which is a combination of Jehovah and Hosea, literally means God Almighty as Redeemer (or Savior) has Come! To buy you back from a corrupt and perverted system where you are condemned to die. Hmmm? Which one sounds more appealing to your spirit, and which one sounds like men made it up. God who knows you personally and loves you so much He died to prove it – or the meanie god who doesn’t even want to know you and insists you die for him, to prove your submission. Submission to what. You better check behind that curtain Tin Man. Don’t say you didn’t know because you have been told .

There is no comparison between Christianity and Islam. If you thought they were comparable because a corrupt and failing society accepts them, with the never ending push through the apparatus of media, well they are not. It is like comparing a wheel barrel to the Starship Enterprise. In one you can labor to push around a few things slowly, and is based pretty much upon what you do. With none of it ever changing you, only wearing you out and frustrating you. Islam has no plan of Salvation and does not even address Sin. Where if you climb aboard the other one (and you are welcome) you can live the God kind of Life. Which is what He always intended and where everything is provided. You are taught the ways of God as you journey back Home, taking as many with you as are willing to go. The only true Faith is based entirely upon what has already been done for you, by another. And the acquiring of it lies completely in your accepting that.

In fact the whole of Christianity turns on our learning to receive from Him what He has already done for us. Sounds easy, but it is actually very difficult for the natural man. Our fallen nature likes to do things for itself, it wants to have a hand in things because it wants some of the credit. Your fallen nature also loves his independence. Something he picked up in the fall, along with death, fear and a spirit of pride that is so big – it’s off the charts. We can either stand against the devil the way God’s instruction manual says to, and it says very clearly how. He sent it to help us get back to the place where Life is the constant. If we refuse the help that is offered, in the end we will join the devil in the place he is going. It is in fact a place that was made only for him and the angels that fell away with him. Lucifer was created and began as a good guy, remember.

Hell is very much a place that was not meant for men at all. That is the first thing to notice immediately upon arrival, for any thinking of going. You will very slowly shake your head in disbelief as you think “the existence of this place and the existence of men have nothing in common, men do not belong here.” Right before the screaming starts. Of course it quickly deteriorates to a place far beyond screaming, the screams are just initial. It seems to me just to be the first response of our psyche in not knowing what else to do when confronted with a level of suffering impossible on earth. As this suffering cannot kill you, it just tortures you, then replenishes the material so you can be tortured again, forever. Because it takes place in the spiritual realm on an eternal plane, the pain runs so much deeper than your flesh could ever know in this world.

In the chapter on Hell in his exceptional book The Problem of Pain, C.S. Lewis explains how although the Lord does stress the terror of Hell with unsparing severity – it is not so much the duration He emphasizes, but the finality. The finality. It is so completely final. Final Destination, the nation you were destined for if you didn’t opt out by believing God. So here’s how you get out of all that if you decide you don’t want to go the place everyone is already going by default. It is a process called salvation. Saving you from where you are at and where you are going by laying hold of the lifeline that’s been thrown to you all of your life. Instead of just casually or intentionally ignoring it as we’ve all done so often before.

But mostly it saves us from our Self, and the swampy stuck in the mud condition that we were born into called sin. You were meant to fly, and you are crawling around in the mud. That is why if you listen to your heart and not your head, rejecting God’s offer of peace which Christ bought for us doesn’t even seem right. In every living soul there is a thirst for God, we want to draw near Him. Yet our fallen nature opposes Him, it even hates Him. Each of us has to decide which of the two sides within ourselves that we will join. You will hear the voice of both, but you can only side with one.

Osama dun bin Laidin the grave attacked the U.S. because of the realization of his greatest fear: the failure of Islam. Jealousy. Christianity works and Islam does not. It is the same reason Cain killed Abel, and the same reason the priests of Israel (the Sadducees and Pharisees) murdered the Messiah they had been waiting for all of their lives. Jealousy, plain and simple. Islam is a complete failure and always has been. It’s just that now they are seeing it for themselves. It has been obvious to everyone else for centuries.

Hardhearted mean angry woman hating, war loving fascist little religion that it is. A dictatorship run by a regime of totalitarian hit men who do not even know what the word Holy means. They are almost as bad as the Vatican, which is the most corrupt and longest running monarchy (and mafia) in history. But that’s another chapter. The few good things in their hateful and controlling theology is something stolen right out of Judaism or Christianity. And don’t let them fool you into believing that Allah is just their word for the same God Almighty that we serve. Not even close. In their own language Allah is a corruption of Il-lah, the name of their moon god, back when they were a bunch of pagans. Before muhammad started listening to those demons.

Islam means submission, and muslim means and is – one who submits. Now let me make this clear, I don’t have a problem with anyone who freely and voluntarily submits themselves to a set of beliefs if that’s what they want to do. With or without a gun or an airliner in their hand. It is Christianity that allows for that – Islam does not. God Himself is the one who gave us the ability to choose, and requires the proper use of it by anyone who wants to follow Him. Just don’t force it on other people who don’t want it. And don’t get mad at Christians or anybody else when you find out you have chosen the wrong door. You could have chosen the right one. By the way, it is foolishness to attack a nation that can kick your butt all over the desert – from a distance. Without ever leaving home, and your camel too. Foolishness.

Okay I’m back. Just had to get that out of my system. Islam perverts that God given choice by enslaving the will (and thus the people) to complete tyranny, and calls it religion. The devil laughs. What a perfect alternative to Satanism. A lot more people for a lot less effort on his part. Now he’s got men doing all the recruiting for him, by force. One of the largest religions on the earth. Man made religion is nothing but a set of rules by which man tries to reach some trailer park god on his own. So that man himself can be in control, and take all the credit. Islam is one of the worst. It is based entirely upon what they do for their god and nothing he does for them. Their god is so weak that he demands you die for him so he can reward you with some grade school version of heaven where you get drunk all day surrounded by virgins and brown eyed boys. I’m sure the women are happy about all that. I would bet most of them would leave in a moment if they did not fear for their lives.

Whereas the God of the Bible still loves man, even though He was betrayed by our ancestors. When they willingly turned the management of the planet over to a fallen angel who hates people. Lucifer is the inspiration behind Islam and all false religion. The gods of the nations are idols. I didn’t say that, the Bible does. It is God who came up with a plan to get anyone back who was willing to believe. The plan required His own death, which was something He had never done before. But was the only way it could work, since men have a free will and were made in His image. He willingly offered Himself in the hope, that everyone who wanted to come back in would.

Christianity is the only faith by its very definition that allows for the co-existence of religions, or other belief systems. Buddhism Taoism and Confucianism are philosophies that have been made into religions, they are not religions in and of themselves. This liberality in Christianity is not because of some common ground or agreement we have with them. There are not any. But by the very nature of Christ and the Bible’s emphasis on free will. God loves you so much that He will allow you to go to Hell, if you really want to.

Not so in the Mecca of Islam, Saudi Arabia. Prince Saud Nasser al Saud whose uncle is the King of Saudi Arabia, became both a client and a friend of mine for several months, many years ago when I was at the La Costa Spa. I had heard that Saudi had religious police and would arrest anyone preaching Christ. When I asked him about it he told me that it was so. I think they cut his head off in Saudi a few years back, after being incarcerated in a British prison for murdering his servant lover in a London hotel. I had known him many years earlier when he was but a teenager, and had been sent by his king to lose some weight. When he arrived he was 5’4″ and 475 pounds. By the time he left about a year and a half later, he had lost over 300 pounds. He had so much excess skin Scripps clinic had to cut it off. I was glad to hear many years later from another Arab client named Baq’r, whose father was a an ambassador, that Saud had been very committed to physical fitness.

You think people freely join Islam. Most of the Arabic tribes became Muslim through military conquest. It is the State sanctioned religion in every nation where it is dominant (mostly poor, uneducated people) – and it is enforced. It’s a matter of historical record that Muhammad and his contemporaries practiced slavery, and that it was extended to Africa shortly after his death. Islam was involved in the slave trade long before they ever taught it to Western Europeans. And are still doing it long after Christians put a stop to it in their own countries.

In his book Slavery and Human Progress, Davis explains “the Arabs and their Muslim allies were the first people to develop a specialized, long distance slave trade from sub-Saharan Africa. They were also the first people to view blacks as suited by nature for the lowest and most degrading forms of bondage.” Empires have all practiced slavery, starting usually with their own people. But there it was always and very blatantly done in their own name – through sheer conquest. Meaning, we are gonna kick your butt and take your stuff because we can. Then you are gonna come work for us for free – or we’ll kill you. It was sheer dominance plain and simple. But this doing it under the guise of religion in the name of some god was a whole other monster. Let’s take a closer look at this booger and see what entrails they scraped him off of before we put sharia to a vote in our country .

From 1915 to 1918 they wiped out eighty percent of the Armenian population, one and a half million people. The massacre took place in Turkey and was both a prototype and forerunner of the Nazi attempt at Jewish extermination some 30 years later. Hitler referred to it in a famous quote before launching his own final solution. During the 80’s and 90’s muslims in North Sudan were selling black Christians into slavery. In 1990 it was believed that Mauritania had as many as 400,000 slaves. In every area of the world where they are a significant part of the population, they are at war.

Years ago a friend of mine who was a Russian and an atheist pointed that out to me. Islam is a religion of war. With most of the inhabitants of those nations having little or no choice, and even less knowledge of any other religion. Especially Christianity. Here in America because of our great freedom, we have every crazy cult you can imagine. Including Islam and it’s market savvy offshoot the Bahai and it’s Bab bulling. They are about as original as Scientology. At least old L. Ron Hubbard admitted publicly that it was all a sham he just dreamt up for the money. A religion created by a science fiction writer, who would have thought. And some poor fools still take it seriously. Never stepped back to take a look at the package they were signing for. Wouldn’t even have to be a serious look.

And please, if you’re a heathen and choose not to believe in God which takes a lot more faith, don’t think Islam’s claim to monotheism somehow equates them with Christianity. It does not. Satanists are monotheists too, and they are entirely mistaken as to who that one god is. They have it backwards. Mary Baxter (an ordained minister with the Church of God) was taken to Hell by Jesus for 30 nights in a row. She wrote a book about it, well known in Christian circles. It’s called A Divine Revelation of Hell. Every satanist should read it before they go there. Every preacher should read it so they don’t. Because there are preachers there too. In it she describes the unrelenting suffering, the torture, the smell, the groans, and she watches as some of the devil’s followers (a few who won him many souls) come before him at their death expecting their reward. Their screams are the loudest, the screams of the betrayed.

It’s kinda funny that anyone would expect someone known throughout the world and through all of history, as the father of Lies, to be nice to them for helping him out. What did you expect, flowers. A parade. Welcome to the barbecue – your on the menu. I can hear the dueling banjoes theme from Deliverance in the background. I might seem here a bit trifling. But then God hardly considers it a compliment that you choose Him as an alternative to Hell. It would be the equivalent of marrying someone who chose you over going to prison, but a hundred times worse. Do you see the quandary we’re in. He wants so much more from you, and He has so much more for you. Back to I slam Islam.

Allah the outlaw does not have any love for people at all. He should be taken out behind his trailer and shot. The Quran has no mention of loving your neighbor, your enemies, or even your friends. In fact the only thing we are told more than 20 times is what allah does not love. Allah loveth not those who do wrong (sura 3:57), Allah loveth not those who reject faith (sura 3:32), Allah loveth not transgressors (sura 2:190), Allah loveth not the itch in his groin – alright, I made that one up. And it’s always trying to sound so King James, like that makes it official. Yeah, and you can go sit in a garage. That doesn’t make you a car.

You would think they didn’t even know the Bible was not written in King James. The conversational Greek that the New Testament was written in called koine greek, read much more like the Message or NIV translations. God’s Word, The Book, the Philips or 20th Century versions of the Bible are all excellent for reading, much better than the KJV. The Bible was never written in the official language of state, like some court document. King James did that, and thank God. It was good for the time, but now the language of it is archaic. These others are so easy to read they make you want to read them.

The Quran actually says that allah forgives whoever he wants and punishes whoever he wishes, I mean like arbitrarily (sura 5:18). Not so with God. You do what He says and you’re in. All the way in, forever. He could no more go back on His Word than trade places with the devil. And it’s open to anybody who wants it. He loves you whether you ever love Him or not, which is one of the simplest definitions for the Hebrew hasid or the Greek agape. He is in love with you. If you study it out, you find that Jesus actually died out of His desire for you. Islam still practices animal sacrifices today, that’s as good as it gets for them. Get a goat and cut its throat now dosey doe your partner. Their book speaks more about war and Hell than anything good, and does not define a single virtue. I said a single virtue. It is incapable of doing so.

Only random mentions of a few. In King James of course, to make it sound official. It’s actually pretty stupid. Yes I’m laughing myself, I actually brought you all this way just to tell you the Koran (that’s the older spelling, before they got fancy) – is stupid. It is so stupid! I mean, you can read any sura (in English), and you’ll just think to yourself – what the Hell are they talking about, that does not even make any sense. Was I supposed to get something from that. It’s like you gotta pretend this means something just to be a muslim. I was trying to be nice, but I’m having to pretend their whole religion is something other than the cloak for male dominance, tribal aggression and outright hatred for Judaism and Christianity that it is.

The New York Times (and other institutions beleaguered from within) have had a very hard time for a very long time – sticking to the truth. Perhaps I can help start a trend here by doing away with pretense myself. Then again, they have never been overly concerned with selling the truth anyway. Say as much as they have been about selling newspapers, or maintaining their status as the Mecca of disposable journalism. So maybe not.

They certainly covered Clinton and her husband favorably when they were in the House, whose two terms are part of the reason we’re in this terrorist mess. Yet they never even mentioned the hundreds of black Christians that were dragged out of their churches by muslims in Sudan, and nailed to trees. A kind of low-country crucifixion. You have to go to church to hear about that (Dr. Kennedy). And the only place you hear about the weapons that have been found is on am radio, or from soldiers who are in theater. Some I’ve known for years.

So anyway I cannot pretend anymore, that Islam just wants you to join their church. When really they just want your stuff, or at least to be in charge of it. I have a pretty strong imagination but I cannot talk about this god game they are playing with a straight face, not seriously anyway. Because I personally know the real One and only God. I’ve been walking with Him for decades as a minister. And every year has gotten better, as I have got to know Him more.

He is my partner, my friend , the lover of my soul, and my Commander in Chief all wrapped up in One. He is my counsel and my guide. He directs me and corrects me. He pays all my bills and He heals all my diseases, and He wants to do it for everybody. But you have to come to Him on His terms, which is okay. Because that kinda comes with being God, you actually get to call some of the shots. The older I get the more clearly I see the completeness of my error. Especially in the things I thought about Him, even as I was getting to know Him. I kept judging Him by the standards of what other men had done to me, and you cannot do that. He just kept loving me. You have to see Him through His word, which will transform you.

I have got so many more twisted backward and even comical things to tell you about Islam, but they hardly seem important now. They are so very easy to pick apart. I think you get the point. I actually feel kind of sorry for them. I wish they would repent and come over to our side. There is plenty of everything in Him, room enough in God for everybody. But they are like the mormons, they actually believe the stuff they have made up. Next time you see a muslim, just yell out – Quit Pretending! Maybe we can get a few to join us. To all the Muslims who really want to know God, I say – Come on in boys the water is fine!

The institutional church is about to collapse and the entire world is about to change. For the first time in all of history the God of all creation is about to reveal Himself to the whole earth in a single event. The catching away of the bride of Christ. Who collectively as a body have been the restraining influence all over the earth, by their very presence. Not as some sort of super righteous or self righteous super men. But as yielded vessels who were made fit to be used by God for his purposes, as they submitted to His authority by obeying His word.

These are the only people who will be leaving. As they are the only ones whose prayer praise and worship along with a lifestyle of obedience enabled the Holy Spirit to restrain the forces of darkness through their physical presence in the earth. It was the power of the Holy Spirit coming out of the lives and the mouths of those who believed God. It did not come from us it came through us. After we are removed, the restraining power that came through us in the spiritual realm will be removed with us.

Both the willingness and the ability in the hearts and minds of men to do good comes only from God as a source, not from men. This goodness has been done in and through men by the Holy Spirit. Humanism has preached the false doctrine of both self sovereignty and the inherent goodness of men for centuries, causing the widespread and willful ignorance of this great sustaining work of the Holy Spirit. Denying it entirely. Man is not capable of directing himself on his own, he was never designed that way. He either yields to the Spirit of God or by default is run by the spirits controlled by the god of this world.

Satan outranks fallen man in this fallen world. Being fallen is what makes it his because at the fall of man it became his. That’s what the fall was, a fall from free and willing submission to God – to being controlled by the Devil. Whether people see that or not doesn’t even matter. Believing is spiritual not physical, and it is a choice that can only be done before you see it. When the very body of people the Spirit works through is completely removed from the earth, the true nature of men since the fall will be unrestrained.

What was formerly accessed by the Spirit since Christ came will now be accessed by Satan and those with him. Meaning Lucifer and the angels that fell with him, along with the demons under them will now have their way in the earth because they have their way in the hearts and minds of men. Not merely influencing as before, but controlling at a much higher level. Since they are not God they cannot alter order established by God, but they now have greater freedom to move within the same order, wherein they were formerly restrained.

Being the overcomers, the true ecclesia, the spotless bride – we will not have to endure this tribulation. Not because we think we are special, because Jesus said so. In one of the three well known eschatological chapters in the gospels that speaks solely about the tribulation and the times leading up to it. It’s all right there in black and white, and it was always open to anyone who wanted it enough. In Luke 21: 36 when Jesus said not to be weighed down with the anxiety and worries of the world, but to pray so that you would have the strength to escape what was coming – the strength He was talking about was not muscular strength, it was spiritual. He was talking about the strength of our Faith. He repeats this same promise of deliverance in Revelation 3:10 to the only church that was faithful out of the seven.

But keep watch on yourselves, or your hearts will become dulled by carousing, drunkenness and the worries of everyday living, and that Day will be sprung upon you suddenly like a trap! For it will close in on everyone, no matter where they live, throughout the whole world. Stay alert, always praying that you will have the strength to escape all the things that will happen and to stand in the presence of the Son of Man. – Luke 21:34-36 Complete Jewish Bible

Faith is an obedience. Romans begins and ends talking about the obedience of faith. The less you obey the Word the weaker your faith will be. Most who call themselves believers have done just the opposite of what Jesus said. They are full of the pressure worry and anxiety of this life, and they don’t pray praise or feed their faith at all. They don’t believe in the rapture because they don’t know the Word. So with their low level of belief and their weak faith they have earned the right to be tested in the tribulation. That’s what the tribulation is, a very painful test. Those who refused to suffer in this life by putting their flesh down and doing what God said instead of what they wanted, will now have to suffer through learning it the hard way.

There is no argument about there being a rapture, it is an event described clearly in multiple Scriptures. There are simply people who don’t know the Bible and people who don’t believe it. You will be able to explain it to anyone who is willing to believe the Bible, after you absorb what I am telling you here. If you want the truth to make it into your spirit you have to stay teachable. Which can only be done by putting on childlikeness and humility. We have to do it with all of God’s things, and the Bible says so. If you don’t do that you will reduce it to something intellectual, and you cannot receive the Spiritual things of God with your intellect. You can only receive them with your spirit. I did not say that, God did.

First we have to understand that about a third of the Bible is prophecy, and most of what Jesus spoke is prophecy. Which almost always has an immediate partial fulfillment, and a later complete fulfillment. Not knowing this one thing has caused many to shipwreck on the outer shoals of prophecy without ever making it to the island. To understand this catching away we will take a look at the few places in Scripture where Jesus talks about coming to get us. Which is not His second coming. At the second coming Jesus comes to take over the world with the Kingdom of God, setting foot on the Mount of Olives physically in Jerusalem. The whole world will know and every eye shall see Him.

The second coming has nothing to do with the rapture, they are two completely separate and different events. At the catching away Jesus comes in the clouds secretly in that only the bride will see Him, and only the bride will be gathered to Him. This is in the Bible. Every time He appeared after the resurrection whether to Paul or a group of people, He only revealed Himself to those He wanted to see Him. It’s nothing new. He did not show Himself to everybody or to the whole world. It doesn’t matter if anybody likes that, it only matters if you believe the Bible. Making the Word of God final authority is required for believers who want it to have any authority at all in their life. We may partially commit to almost everything, God does not do that with anything.

In the gospel of John while speaking prophecy about His going to prepare a place and coming back to get them, Jesus is not addressing a crowd. He speaks to a very small group of obedient faithful believers called disciples, who did everything that He said. Except for one of them of course, who betrayed Him. He said he would come to take them with him to be where He is. He did not say He was coming to be with them where they are. He also told them that they knew where He was going and they knew the way. Then spends the next couple of chapters telling them the way for anyone who wants to, to get where He is going. How to come and be with Him. The way and the how He spoke to them about was obedience.

Do not let your hearts be troubled (distressed, agitated). You believe in and adhere to and trust in and rely on God; believe in and adhere to and trust in and rely also on Me. In My Father’s house there are many dwelling places (homes). If it were not so, I would have told you; for I am going away to prepare a place for you. And when (if) I go and make ready a place for you, I will come back again and will take you to Myself, that where I am you may be also. And [to the place] where I am going, you know the way. – John 14:1-4 Amplified

So the first thing to get clear about this catching away is that it is a place. Jesus will be taking us somewhere and He says so. The next thing to see is that it includes a body. You have one now and you will have one then. It will be the actual body material you have now without the physical death from the curse. The same body but of a different kind, a new kind. The new one will be the same kind Jesus has, a spiritual body. You can walk thru the wall but I can shake your hand. You can eat some fish and will never get sick. It will be impossible for you to sweat and you cannot go to the restroom again, ever, for any reason. Hallelujah!

I’m telling you a mystery. Not all of us will die, but we will all be changed. It will happen in an instant, in a split second at the sound of the last trumpet. Indeed, that trumpet will sound, and then the dead will come back to life. They will be changed so that they can live forever. This body that decays must be changed into a body that cannot decay. – 1 Corinthians 15:51-53a God’s Word

Finally the rapture is an event. It is a departure of saints in the air to meet Jesus in the air. The Bible says that. It is not Jesus setting foot onto the earth to set up The Kingdom. That does happen but it happens later. There are many other Scriptures describing that, which have nothing to do with these Scriptures. The marriage supper of the Lamb and the bride of Christ are in the Bible. It doesn’t matter that the word rapture is not in the Bible, the event is in the Bible. The word trinity is not there either, nor is demon, but everybody knows what they are. Besides, it is in the Latin version, just not the original Greek texts. From those we have translated it being gathered or catching away. Here is the event in Scripture.

I can tell you this directly from the Lord: We who are still living when the Lord returns will not rise to meet him ahead of those who are in their graves. For the Lord himself will come down from heaven with a commanding shout, with the call of the archangel, and with the trumpet call of God. First, all the Christians who have died will rise from their graves. Then, together with them, we who are still alive and remain on the earth will be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air and remain with him forever. – 1 Thessalonians 4:15-17 The Book

The catching away of the obedient ones also known as the rapture has not happened yet. But it is about to. If you don’t believe in it then I’m not speaking to you. This is for the Believers. If you are not Expecting then you will be sleeping when He comes. This is the very time Jesus described clearly as falling upon all men unexpectedly, catching them like a trap. Because they did not believe. Some have tied the passing of Billy Graham to the timing of the rapture. I believe this to be correct, but of course it is not relevant to Scripture. Staying is not a punishment – Leaving is a reward. There will be wrath and punishment going on, but not for those who now become the true Believers. It will be very difficult times, very hard for everyone. But it will also be the greatest Harvest of souls in history. Whether you stay or whether you go, make sure you are a part of what God is doing right now. Peace